The Northern Provincial Council elections slated for September
2013 hold critical relevance for a transition from post-war Sri Lanka to a
post-conflict Sri Lanka. This is an important opportunity for the majoritarian
Sinhala state to regain international credibility.

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The Northern Provincial Council elections to be held in September
2013 have assumed critical relevance for post-war Sri Lanka. As President
Rajapaksa stated: “There were
presidential and parliamentary elections but this is the first free election in
30 years afforded to northern people to express themselves in a vote". The
Northern Provincial Council elections provide hope for a transition from
post-war Sri Lanka to a post-conflict Sri Lanka, as free and fair electoral
processes at provincial levels increasingly play a significant role in ushering
in a process of democratic devolution, power sharing, minority rights and
reconciliation.

However, both democracy and freedom have had varied meanings for
the majority Sinhala and minority Tamil populations in Sri
Lanka. Yet, with the declaration of the provincial elections there
are renewed hopes for democratic devolution. The elections come close behind
the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting to be held in November in Sri
Lanka and will be closely watched at the local, regional and international
level.

The India-Sri Lanka accord of 1987, which later became the 13th
Amendment to Sri Lanka’s constitution, created the council systems to devolve
power at the level of provinces. All the provinces except the Northern Province
had elected councils. In 1988 President Jayewardene issued
proclamations which enabled the Northern and Eastern provinces to be one
administrative unit administered by one elected Council. The North-East
Province was born. However, police and land powers were never devolved. The
Eastern Province struggled without adequate financial powers. And then, with
the Supreme Court ruling in 2007, there was a de-merger of the North and
East. It is after nearly three decades that Sri Lanka will now have
elections for the Northern Provincial Council.

The Northern Province of Sri Lanka has a peculiar place in Sri
Lanka’s history and politics. It has been geographically the area where the
minority Tamils are concentrated. The conflict in Sri Lanka has roots in a discourse
of competing Sinhala and Tamil nationalisms around traditional Sinhala and
Tamil homelands which have been sustained through historical memories, writings
and instrumentalist politics. The minority Tamils argue that the North
of Sri Lanka constitutes their traditional homeland. The majority
Sinhala group emphasize that the island nation is a sacred place for
(Theravada) Buddhism and that the Sinhalese are the chosen people
entrusted with the task of preserving the island that will sustain Buddhism in
its pristine form.

In this sense, the majoritarian state has been skeptical of any
sort of power-sharing arrangement with the minority Tamil community, given the
fear of secessionism and the threat to the centralized, unitary and primarily
Buddhist state. This has been justified through the discourse of conservative
security dilemmas, parochial instrumentalist politics and the nature of the state
itself.

The larger question, which still remains under the litmus test, is
whether the Northern Provincial Council elections signify a break from this
divided past and a move towards accommodation and power sharing with the
minority Tamils. At this juncture it can only be stated that it is an
optimistic first step in a post-conflict scenario for the island nation. Many
hurdles on this path still remain.

The major challenges in the North centre on issues of land rights,
rehabilitation, increased militarization, and the long-term process of
reconciliation. Sri Lanka’s leading Tamil ethnic party, Tamil National Alliance
(TNA), has picked up Supreme Court Judge C.V. Wigneswaran to contest for chief
minister in the Tamil-majority northern province. While the speculations
of a TNA win are rampant in political circles, the tasks ahead are many. The
challenge for any incumbent government would be to address these local issues,
within the limited mandate of provincial powers. And here the 13th Amendment,
which in original form had devolved police and land powers at the provincial
level, becomes significant.

Given the mainstream opposition to the nature of the 13th Amendment,
it is unlikely that police and land powers would be granted at the provincial
level in the North. In any case, these powers have not been provided to any
other province, and the state would be all the more reluctant to do so for the
Northern Province. The Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) has been appointed
to look at possible constitutional changes particularly on the 13th Amendment
to the constitution. However the credibility of the PSC is at stake,
as the only majority Tamil ethnic party TNA has boycotted it.

Secondly, given the ‘India’ factor in Sri Lanka’s politics, the
Northern Provincial Council elections will have ramifications for the domestic
contexts of both India and Sri Lanka, and could also consequently impinge on
the trajectory of India–Sri Lanka relations. At the domestic level in Sri
Lanka, the mainstream extremist Sinhala groups are antagonistic towards the
holding of elections for the Provincial Councils in the North, and see it as a
ploy of the Indian state to interfere in the internal affairs of the island
nation. The JVP party’s Propaganda Secretary Vijitha Herath states: “The
government has now managed to create new problems in the country with the
Northern Provincial Council elections that have been called four years after
the end of the war”. This mainstream extremist Sinhala party is
against any kind of power sharing arrangements with the minority Tamils.

For India, the Northern Provincial Council elections have a twin
track utility. On one hand the Congress government at the Centre, given the
Parliamentary elections in 2014, wants to placate the Tamil constituency in
India. On the other hand, there is an attempt to push for a genuine process of
democratic engagement in the North of Sri Lanka. India has both in
the present and past reiterated the significance of the 13th Amendment.
However, given the regional dynamics, India is also aware of the increasing
Chinese involvement in Sri Lanka and in some ways wants to both pressure and
placate the Rajapakse Government. It is a ‘wait and watch’ policy for India,
given that it wants to test the motivations of the Rajapaksa Government to
begin a process of dialogue, democratic engagement and reconciliation with the
minority Tamils. The Northern Provincial Council elections would both procedurally
and substantively indicate if at all Sri Lanka is now moving from a post war
context to a post conflict context.

In the final analysis, the Northern Provincial Council elections could
have ‘reputational costs’ internationally for the Rajapaksa regime. The
international community has constantly reiterated that Sri Lanka is being closely
monitored on issues of human rights, reconciliation and the Northern Provincial
Council elections. Jean Lambert, chair of the European parliamentary delegation
to Sri Lanka, expressed concern during a recent visit over the increasing
militarization of the North for economic benefits. Given that the NPC elections
come close behind the Commonwealth heads of Government meeting, this could well
be an opportunity grabbed or an opportunity missed by the majoritarian Sinhala
state to regain international credibility and prove to the world at large
that it is serious to push the island nation from a state of negative
peace to a just peace.